Need Advice: Making an Acting Reel

Hey guys, so I’m having a tough time with this. As you all know, I’m a big successful actor in New York City now, with television and film credits out the wazoo. I’m trying to piece together a reel of my work to show to agents, producers, casting directors, etc. I’m not sure if I should go the “comedy, funny guy, nice dude next door” route or the “serious, brooding stranger in a coffee shop you’d kinda like to rub chocolate sauce all over” route. Maybe you guys can help me out. Take a look at some of these clips and tell me what you think would showcase me best:

I think the clip above is pretty solid, because in the scene I’m featured in in ABC’s Twisted, I think I really sell the moment where I turn around and look at the bad guy. What was his name? I don’t really remember, but it was totally a dramatic and crazy moment, and I handled it better than any of the other “students” in the class. See their faces? “Whaaa? You killed your aunt? Whaaa?” I mean, come on guys, less is more…

Remember that show Smash? Yeah, me to – mostly because it was my big break. I mean, I’m still waiting to hear back from a guy on set I thought might have been a producer to give me a call, but he seemed totally into it. In this serious scene, I play an usher, casually cleaning up around the theater after a show. They said it wasn’t necessary, but I did my homework. I created a real character out of this guy. Usher #2? No way. My name was Leroy Fitzimmons, and I was a Ukranian immigrant living in New York City and attending night classes at a local learning annex in Queens. I escaped political strife and anguish in order to come to America and chase the American dream of being an electrical engineer, which is hard because Leroy never learned math in his Ukranian school house. Good, right? You crying yet? Yeah, I know. Smash was cancelled shortly after this episode – why, you ask? The characters were too real. Television audiences want pop garbage and nothing more. They just weren’t ready for my gritty performance.

This one from the upcoming masterpiece Delivery Man might be my favorite. Now, it’s easy to get caught up in technical details, such as the fact that you can’t really see my face very clearly. Rumor around the set was that when they originally placed me closer in the frame of this shot, the director of photography asked that I be placed in the back because I was too handsome and too good of an actor. Vince Vaughn apparently doesn’t like it when people show him up on set, and I totally understand that – someday, I’ll be in the same place. By the time they placed me in the very back of this room, I even insisted that the depth of field be set so that I couldn’t be seen that clearly. That way, I’d be available for larger talking scenes later in the filming process. I was never given a larger role, but my intentions were good.